This week Australian Story returns to one of our most popular rural programs – the story of a young pastoralist whose dream is to restore his beloved land back to nature after a century of over-stocking for the wool market.
David Pollock’s radical project to remove income-earning livestock from his historic property, Wooleen, shocked his neighbours. And it might have failed but for the unexpected arrival of Frances Jones, a young woman on a gap year from Melbourne.
Together, David and Frances concentrated on creating a tourist ecology haven and finding a non-destructive way to run cattle.
In the decade since they started their regeneration project, the grass on Wooleen’s semi-arid mulga country, traversed by the Murchison River, is now greener and the river gums are growing for the first time in a century.
It made a stunning setting for family, friends and neighbours who came to celebrate the couple’s wedding last month.
However, some of their regeneration methods are not without controversy, and their latest strategy risks pitting the newlyweds against their neighbours and ostracising them from the community where David grew up.
